Today is Valentines Day, which I didn't think would be blatant in China, but it definitely is. The young couples -- people in their twenties -- are the ones that give it away. They walk around with bouquets of roses and bouquets of smaller, purple flowers sold on every street corner and in between. Men cary their girlfriends purses, which isn't unique to Valentine's Day here, but was definitely more evident today. Large teddy bears, sold at every major intersection or mall, are also popular. They're about the size of a desktop computer; some even sport a sweater with the American flag on it. Huh. But it looked like if you were taken, but without bear in hand, you might as well be single because any other boy would have bought you a teddy bear today. At least seven girls in my train car on the way home today had a bear. If you're single, I think the thing to do is see a romantic movie. If you're bumming about Valentine's, a romantic movie doesn't seem like the best mood booster, but I guess I'm wrong.
The walk from Chongwenmen, the subway station by my house, to home takes about ten minutes. Tonight, I finally stopped by a grocery store to pick up some bottled water. You can't drink the tap water here because of bad pipes so water's hard to come by if someone hasn't recently boiled some. Anyway, I bought a few bottles of water, but was taking awhile to put some coins away that had fallen. When I looked up again she handed my a pink heart balloon on a stick and smiled. The nice gesture combined with her smile put a pep in my step all the way home.
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